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RedRoadLogliner
Present day: After his mother is accidentally killed during a father-son quarrel, a young martial artist must find his long-lost uncle – to explain his mother’s dying words, while he is relentlessly pursued by his father, a martial arts master who has vowed to kill him.
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Probably worth reviewing the punctuation and structure (the “Present Day” is unnecessary, while the hyphen is strangely placed).
That aside, the inciting incident and the action seem to be working well in your idea here. Might be worth developing the main character more – “young martial artist” is a bit nondescript. What is the journey they they go on? What is it that changes in them over the course of the story? Add this primary characteristic, in a word or two, into the character description – and ideally, have it relate to the plot in an interesting way.
After his mother is accidentally killed during a father-son quarrel, a young martial artist wracked by grief and guilt must find his long-lost uncle to explain his mother’s dying words, while being relentlessly pursued by his father, a martial arts master who has vowed to kill him.
I can see what the stakes are in terms of saving his own life, but what are the stakes in explaining his mother’s dying words?? Why MUST he not only live but explain??? What is lost if he lives but never gets the chance to explain?
After his mother is accidentally killed during a father-son quarrel, a young martial artist must find his long-lost uncle to fulfill his mother’s dying wish, while being relentlessly pursued by his father, a master of martial arts who has vowed to kill him.
Fulfilling a loved one’s dying wish is often used as a goal by novice logliners, but rarely works. Whether it’s fulfilled or not, it usually has little tangible impact on the character and world of the story – this means that the stakes are low. Also, if a character is compelled to do something for a dead parent, they’re essentially following someone else’s dictum and not their own.? However, driven and independent characters are commonly more interesting.
Is the character guilt ridden? Did the son kill the mother?
After his mother is accidentally killed during a father-son quarrel, a heartbroken young martial artist flees the family home, seeking his long-lost uncle for protection? and fighting off fearsome street warriors sent by his father, a martial arts master who has vowed to kill him.
I still have no idea what the stakes are in delivering the message.? Why the message matters.
By stakes, I means it’s not enough that the boy finds some kind of absolution, penance for his guilt, compensation for his remorse, by successfully delivering the message.? The father also needs to have stakes in the message.
The message must contain either information that poses a mortal threat to the father;? or it contains information the father covets for his own nefarious purpose.? Or both.
IOW: the content of the message should be a kind of a McGuffin — something all the major characters desperately want, that all have a personal stake in.
The logline doesn’t indicate that the father wants to kill the son BECAUSE of the content of the message and its intended recipient, that he has any stakes in the message at all.? The logline only says the father wants him dead.? What does the father have to lose if the son succeeds in delivering the message?
Consider the movie “1917”.?? Two soldiers must race against time to deliver a message to stop 1,600 men from walking straight into a deadly trap.? Unambiguous high stakes for all involved.? And the stakes are personal, too.? One of the 1,600 is a soldier’s brother.
Re: I personally believe that intrigue is important in a logline.
The primary mission of a logline is to pitch the script, to induce movie makers to read the script.? It has to be kind of intrigue that serves as an irresistible story hook.? Right now, I’m more puzzled than intrigued. That’s my subjective response.? Other readers may respond differently.
RE: an emotional journey,
…to fulfill an objective goal.? (The stakes of which are deficient as I previously noted.)
Beg to differ with your analysis of the “The Fugitive” (a favorite film, btw).
RE: as he comes to terms with the brutal murder of his wife.
What does “come to terms mean”?? What’s the visual for “come to terms”?
RE:? from circumstantial guilt to proven innocent
A rather passive representation of the plot action.? Richard Kimble has a specific objective goal: to prove he is innocent. And the only way he can do that is to ferret out the real perp.? He’s the only one interested in proving his innocence, finding the perp.?? The U.S. Marshal isn’t.? He says so more than once:? “I don’t care.”
As soon as Kimble escapes (at the end of Act 1), he sets out to do exactly that.? He proactively returns to Chicago and proactively pursues clues to find his wife’s killer. He is the main character — and he’s the protagonist.? He’s in the driver’s seat of the plot.? The U.S. marshal is in the driver’s seat of the pursuing vehicle.
And the stakes for Kimble are clear:? He must prove his innocence or else he will be executed.
And Kimble is a steadfast protagonist:? he has no strong character arc. The character arc belongs to the U.S. Marshal; he is the character who eventually changes his objective and opinion of Kimble because of what he discovers. The U.S. Marshal starts out as the antagonist.? A relentless proactive antagonist.? His objective goal is to apprehend Kimble — not prove Kimble’s? innocence.? He pivots only in the last act when he comes upon evidence that indicates Kimble may, indeed, be innocent.
Whatever.? It’s your story.? I’ve said my 2.5 cents worth.
Redroad:
Your latest version leaves me less puzzled.? It has a logical reason why he would go in search of his uncle — he needs his protection.? That makes perfect and immediate sense.? Everything in a logline — logic,motivation,? causality — must make immediate sense.? A logline doesn’t allow writers the? luxury of space to explain. Only time? (10-12 seconds) to tell.
Let me clarify my pov:? for the purposes of the script as distinct from the logline, you can work in all that material about his also needing to deliver a message.
But a logline? is different.? A writer has to work within the tyranny of a template.? He must distill 100+ pages of script down to one sentence of (ideally) 30 words or less that contains a short list of elements:? inciting incident, character, goal, obstacle.
Oh, the outrageous tyranny of the template, the inhumanity of being constrained to only 30 words!? But that’s the nature of the biz beast.
Now then:
On the basis of? my own systematic? and extensive study of loglines , I have concluded that “sweet? spot” for logline word length is 20-30 words. 30-35 words is tolerable;? 35-40 is worrisome.? Anything over 40 words is unacceptable.
I don’t expect you to accept that just because I say it;? I can back it up it with a graph of a logline database I have built.? But the ability to upload graphs at this site has been disabled.? However, check out this link to a graph I was able to post in in a discussion thread in 2016. (Since then, the sample size has grown to 940; the distribution remains relatively stable.)
Your latest version is 46 words long.? So I suggest it needs to be trimmed:? Here is my revision that comes in? at 36 words.
After his mother accidentally dies in a family fight, a grieving young martial artist must flee home and find protection from his long-lost uncle while fending off his father’s warriors who have orders to kill him.
It needs polishing, but there it is.? My takeaway is that when it comes to drafting loglines, less is more.
fwiw